Author: Magiquill9
Chapter 9: On the Tip of Your TongueShips: Harry and Ginny, Hermione and Ron, Bill and Fleur, and Lupin and Tonks.
Chapter Synopsis: Harry and company head to Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, do some research, have it out with the order, uncover R.A.B., and they themselves are uncovered as well.
Story Summary: HBP raised as many questions as it answered. How can Harry find a horcrux? How can he destroy the horcruxes? Everything was laid out, and we were about to jump off the cliff. Here's where the cliffhanger ends and the adventure begins. Join Harry and friends as they struggle to lead the wizarding world out of despair, fight the good fight, and put an end to the evil that is Tom Riddle.
Disclaimer: Hey guys, hope you liked the mini Hogwarts battle. I tried to make it realistic and slowly build Harry's leadership, that chapter was a big step. Just let me know If I get them too OoC. I'm working on it. Also, I'm level with you all now pretty much. I don't have any more chapters that bam I can update daily, unless I write them. When I started I had about five chapters already written, so I apologize if the updating starts to slow down, just stay with me. Thanks for the reviews and thanks for reading. Without further ado, I submit to you all, my beloved readers, chapter 9, On the Tip of Your Tongue.
They arrived at Grimmauld Place and Harry immediately decided he needed sleep. He walked up to his room and collapsed on the bed. Ron followed suit. They had a tough day. When they woke up again, Harry realized it was already Ginny's birthday. It was still early though; the watch Mrs. Weasley gave him said it was only 5:00 in the morning. Harry decided to wake Ginny up, and give her a good birthday present, as she had done for him. Harry tossed on the invisibility cloak, sneaked by a snoring Ron, and closed the door gently behind him. He snuck into Ginny's room and just sat there admiring the beautiful sixteen-year-old girl in front of him. He absentmindedly played with a loose strand of her fiery red hair and twirled it in his hands. He just soaked in her radiant beauty and admired how peaceful she looked when she slept. There wasn't very often when Harry and his friends were actually peaceful. She stirred softly and groaned. She began to rapidly blink her eyes and Harry hid under the cloak once more.
"Harry?" she asked sleepily. Harry lifted his hand and tugged at her hair again. She swatted at him but otherwise took no notice.
"Is that you?" Ginny slowly sat up and looked around. Harry decided to surprise her. He inched slowly towards her face, and when he was ready, he pulled the cloak over her face and kissed her full on the lips. Had her mouth not been busy with Harry's her scream would have echoed throughout the whole house, and woken up the screaming portrait of Mrs. Black. Harry chuckled as she realized it was him and got serious on her kissing. Right when Ginny got in the mood, Harry pulled away. She reached out to grab him but he retreated back under the safety of the cloak. He came back to her once more and presented her with his treasure from the Potter vault. He slid the promise ring onto her finger and heard her inhale a breath and not let it out.
"Harry… it's beautiful." Harry let out the breath he had been holding too.
"I'm glad you like it. That's my promise to you. That ring. It promises you…me."
"That's so sweet Harry." Harry thought it was kind of corny but if she said it was sweet… She pulled him back and kissed him again, not to snog him senseless for hours, but just one kiss. And that one kiss was one of the sweetest kisses he had ever had. It promised a lot of things, he could almost feel her happiness and his spirits lifted as well. She bit Harry on the tip of his tongue and Harry let out a gasp. They both heard Hermione stir so Harry slipped the cloak back on, kissed her once on the forehead, and ran back up to his room.
He pulled the cloak off and tried to catch a few more hours of sleep, but Ginny kept flashing in and out of his mind. He finally relaxed and fell asleep but was shaken awake in what seemed to be minutes later by Ron.
"Harry- HARRY. Get up!"
"Whads hapnin?" Harry muttered intelligently.
"Ginny's birthday!"
"I already gave her to it." Harry found himself having a hard time waking up. He had been having a funny dream about an elf and a necklace. And something about a bowl of punch? No, no that wasn't right. Potion? Maybe. It was on the tip of his tongue, if he could only remember it. It seemed, important somehow. Frustrated, Harry sighed aloud, and got out of bed, prepared to face the day, and whatever it would bring.
"Finally," grumbled Ron. "I'm starved." Harry snickered. Ron was always hungry. They trooped down stairs and met up with Hermione and the rest of the Weasleys for breakfast. Harry noticed that most of the professors were either asleep or had left Grimmauld Place. They ate breakfast in silence, weary from yesterday's events and talked about many different things. Harry sat there, silently eating his bacon, and contemplating his next move. He supposed he would have to talk to Dobby, and he would definitely need to speak to the order. McGonagall was as good a contact as any. Harry still held reserves about informing Ginny of the horcruxes, but he rationalized it. If Harry hadn't told her, she would have found out through her own means, and then Harry would have been in for it. Not to mention, she might have followed Harry, Ron, and Hermione, and not know what she was getting herself into. Harry realized he had to inform her, if nothing else to scare her off. He wanted at least one person to know what they were doing in case they didn't make it back, so it could be carried on. But Ginny was determined to follow him 'to hell and back' as she had put it, so Harry resigned himself to telling at least one more person about the hocruxes. He had narrowed it down to Remus, McGonagall, or- well actually, that was pretty much his list. Harry decided he would tell them later, before they went on their first mission. He excused himself from the table and wandered around the house.
There were so many memories. Where to start? Harry just walked through the rooms; he noticed Dobby and Winky had done an excellent job cleaning up. He found himself in the room they had spent so long cleaning. He remembered back in the summer of his fifth year, they had thrown out tons of stuff. It was Harry and the Weasleys versus Kreacher and the house. That had been an interesting fight. They had thrown out tons of stuff: that strange music box, that heavy locket that none of them could open, those books about Wizarding genealogy, a lot of pictures, medals, they had covered pretty much everything and thrown it out. Or at least tried; Harry remembered catching sight of some of the shrieking photo frames in Kreacher's little hide away spot. So everything might not have survived the purging of 'the most noble and ancient house of Black.' Harry never noticed when Ginny came to his side but noticed when she brushed the tear that had graced Harry's cheek.
"Sirius hated it here. I can see that. There are just too many memories, and they must be even worse for him, I mean if it was so bad you ran away? I would have run from the Dursleys too but I had nowhere to go. Can you just imagine? And then being shut up in here without being able to go anywhere, feeling helpless and useless, left behind and having it rubbed in your face." Harry looked at Ginny, and to his shock, she was crying. The tears fell freely. Harry pulled her close and brushed her hair lightly. "What's the matter Gin?"
"That's exactly how I feel every time you leave. Maybe now you understand how I would feel if you left me." Harry realized that subconsciously, that is what had gone through his mind, and that was what had made him make the decision of letting Ginny in on the mission Dumbledore had given him.
"I'll never leave you Gin. I'm always right here." Harry looked up and realized they had been walking for a while. They were now in front of the family tapestry. Harry pointed at a burned up whole in it.
"That's Sirius. You can barely make out the date of death on there. I guess it updates it. I wonder how that works. And there's his brother, Regulus. When did he die? Oh, it says in 1980."
"That's around the time you were born, wasn't it?"
"Nearly. Well, it depends what month, what does it say?"
"November 5th."
"Then yeah, it was a little after Halloween, so I was already born. It was after the prophecy too, Dumbledore heard it around Halloween."
Harry slipped his hands into his pockets and fingered the fake locket he had found with Dumbledore. He wondered about the identity of the mysterious R.A.B. Harry had decided it had to be a death eater, since he called Voldemort, the Dark Lord, and that was really all he knew. Then, something clicked in Harry's head. It was on the tip of his tongue, if he could just remember. Hah! Alphard, that was Sirius's uncle's name. It could be his middle name too. R.A.B.
"You don't think- no, no it couldn't be. Could it? They said he backed out- was killed a few days later, sounded like he knew the prophecy, I mean saying 'meet your match' gives that one away, but could it be that simple?" Harry mused aloud.
"Huh?" asked Ginny.
"What do you think, could it be true?"
"Oh yeah sure, since I know exactly what you're talking about," Ginny said sarcastically.
"R.A.B., look."
Harry handed Ginny the fake locket and she read the note.
"And you think it's-"
"Regulus Black. They all said he was a death eater, but that he backed out and was killed a few days later. It all fits. He could have even heard about the prophecy. It all makes sense. But that means he got the locket."
"And it's here. Grimmauld Place!" Harry stared at Ginny incredulously.
"How do you know that?"
"We saw it awhile back, when we were cleaning out the house in the summer. That heavy locket, that none of us could open? I think that was it."
"But we threw it out didn't we?"
"Maybe. Let's look."
Harry ran back to find Hermione and Ron, Ginny hot on his heels. They found them sitting on the bed in Ron's room, and when Harry walked in, they sprang apart, as if two people on either side of the room had just cast summoning charms at the pair of them.
"We know who R.A.B. is," Harry said, cutting straight to the chase.
"Who? I've been trying to find out who it was."
Harry relished the moment that he knew something Hermione Granger didn't, and then looked at her.
"Remember the note? 'To the Dark Lord.' Who calls Voldemort, the Dark Lord?"
"Death eaters," stated Hermione.
"And who do we know that's a death eater?"
"Well there's a lot of them Harry; there's Snape, Malfoy, Bellatrix-"
"That's dead?"
Hermione bit her lip as she sat, contemplating what Harry said. Ron looked up at Harry, excitement shining through his eyes.
"You don't think that it's-"
"That's exactly what I think," said Harry.
"But that's great then, we already can find the locket," exclaimed Ron.
"You know, it's really annoying when you talk about something that I don't understand, not to mention rude," said Hermione, resentful that she didn't understand yet.
"Now you know how we feel every time you think of something and just talk in sentences that would take years for us to understand."
Hermione bit back her retort, wanting to know who R.A.B. was. "Well, who is it then?"
"Regulus Black," proclaimed Ginny. Hermione gasped.
"Then the locket was here over the summer," said Hermione, connecting the dots like Ginny had. Ron swore.
"But we threw that stuff out."
"Maybe not," said Hermione. "Kreacher kept trying to save it and put things like that in his little bedroom. Let's go look. Just to be safe, we should look around the house too."
They moved out, Hermione and Ron conveniently deciding they would check around the house for it, while Harry and Ginny headed to Kreacher's, for lack of a better word, room.
"Well Gin, this is it." Ginny nodded. They began to sort through all the blankets and photographs that Kreacher had rescued but couldn't find a thing. There was nothing there, nothing at all. No locket. Harry knew it couldn't have been that simple. He walked back downstairs, defeated, and ran into Hermione and Ron, who looked like they had just been snogging. Harry bit back his comment and looked at them.
"Right, this is silly Ron. Look, just do this. Accio locket." Hermione waved her wand, and about a dozen lockets flew at her, knocking her in the head, the chest, and the stomach. She fell onto floor, knocked out. Ron ran to her side and tried to get her to wake up.
"Hermione, Hermione no, come back." Ginny walked over to Ron, pushed him aside looking exasperated because of her brother's actions and cast an enervate on Hermione. She blinked her eyes and looked around. Ron looked sheepish, Harry, amused.
"Well, there's all the lockets in the house," Hermione said with a silly grin. They sorted through them, but no locket. Well, no real locket. They were all just regular lockets, not ones that held a portion of Voldemort's soul. Harry looked defeated again.
"What do we do now?" asked Ron.
"We have to find that locket. I guess that means we threw it out," said Hermione.
"Wait," Harry said slowly.
"What?" they asked.
"What if Mundungus stole it? He was stealing a lot of things from Sirius, well from me I guess. Maybe he took the locket too."
"It's possible," Hermione said thoughtfully.
"Then we need to talk to Mundungus Fletcher," said Ginny. Harry still felt a little hesitant about including Ginny, but she had been the one who remembered the locket.
"Where is he anyway?" asked Ron.
"Who knows," sighed Harry.
"I do," exclaimed Hermione triumphantly. "Azkaban."
"Azkaban?" Harry asked in disbelief.
"Yes, Azkaban, he was sent there for impersonating an inferi, I remember reading about it."
"Then it looks like we need to go to Azkaban. Ron, talk to your dad, see if he can arrange us a meeting with Dung. Tell him it's because I need to know where he put some things of mine." Ron nodded and left the room. Harry sat there quietly, thinking about different ways to kill Dung for putting him through this much trouble. Boiling him in a stolen cauldron was appealing, as was getting him married to Umbridge. But that, Harry wouldn't even wish on his worst enemy. Ron returned after about fifteen minutes and broke the silence, because no one had said a word after he left. Each of them had been thinking about what would happen if Mundungus had the locket, or worse, if he didn't have it..
"Dad said he would talk to Scrimgeour. He should be back soon, he said he would floo back and tell me." At that moment they heard the fireplace come to life and Mr. Weasley's head was sticking out of it.
"Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny," he said, giving each of them a nod as he said their name, or at least as best of a nod as he could, as his head was the only thing they could see.
"Scrimgeour said he would arrange it for tomorrow afternoon, but that he would want a word with you after you took care of it. So he said you can go to Azkaban around 2:00 and then when you're finished, he would have someone escort you to his office so he could talk with you."
"Thanks Mr. Weasley. Umm, how am I supposed to get there?"
"We can go to the office and there's a portkey that will get us to the docks. From there, we'll take a boat to Azkaban and you can have your meeting with Dung. Ron said he stole something you need."
"Something like that, I'm not sure if he has it, but I'll find out. Thanks Mr. Weasley, I appreciate it," Harry said sincerely.
"Not at all Harry, not at all." Mr. Weasley left and Harry looked around at his friends.
"I suppose that means he's going to try and recruit me to be the poster boy again. I'd really like you all to be with me when I go talk to Scrimgeour, so I guess that means we're all going to Azkaban together. You don't have to though; it's up to you. I'm not sure if the dementors are there or not, so it may be pretty bad. But I'll let you all decide."
"Of course we'll go with you Harry," stated Ginny emphatically. Ron and Hermione looked at him, trying to decide if he had thought they would have said no.
"Then that's settled. We'll head off to Azkaban tomorrow. Hopefully, by the end of the week, we'll have our horcrux." Everyone looked determined, and Harry realized he should lighten up the mood.
"But for now," Harry reached down and scooped Ginny up in his arms, carrying her to the dining room, while she squealed in surprise and delight, "let's celebrate Ginny's birthday." They headed into the dining room and sat down, ready to help Mrs. Weasley cook if she needed it. She waved them off, saying it was nearly finished as it was. She announced it was ready and served them their food. Fred and George came down, as did Charlie. Bill walked in and Ginny threw her arms around him screaming "Bill! You came!" and laughed when he tussled up her hair. She sat back down and began to eat her birthday meal. Mr. Weasley arrived as well and pretty soon it was an all out Weasley feast. They talked about their day and later on, when they neared dessert, the visit Harry would pay to Azkaban was brought up.
"Harry? You're going to Azkaban Island?"
"I have to Mrs. Weasley, I have to talk to Dung." Mrs. Weasley looked reproachful at the mention of Dung's name, she apparently still harbored ill feelings towards him, but Harry was just happy it wasn't directed at him, yet.
"Is it ok if I take Ginny and Ron with me? Because afterwards, I have to talk to Scrimgeour, and I want them with me in case he tries to do something that I wouldn't understand, and they're the experts on politics." Harry watched as Mrs. Weasley thought about what he said. There was really only one answer she could give.
"No, I'm sorry Harry, I can't let them go with you."
"Thanks Mrs. We- wait what?"
"I don't want them going with you to Azkaban. I'm sorry, but that's my decision. I can't say anything for Hermione, but I don't want them going."
"Mum, I'm going to go either way. I'm of age." Mrs. Weasley looked torn when Ron said that.
"Fine, Ginny, you aren't going."
"Mum!"
"No Ginny, I'm sorry, I am not going to let you go there when there are death eaters in Azkaban. I'm afraid for you and I'm not going to have you put up with any of that. You are staying and that's that." Ginny stormed upstairs, ignoring the fact it was her birthday, and left the room, furious. Harry made to follow after her, but a hand from Ron told him not to go. Instead, Hermione went after her. They came back later and had cake, Ginny looking a bit calmer and resolved, Hermione looking fatigued. They finished the dessert and Hermione announced she was going to go sleep. Ginny wouldn't let her though and grabbed her by the hand. They headed outside for some Quidditch.
"And I give you Weasley, Weasley, Weasley, aaaaaannnnnnd Weasley!" announced Fred, mimicking the announcer as they trooped onto the Quidditch field. It was Bill, Charlie, and the twins, versus Harry, Hermione, Ginny, and Ron.
"Against them will be the youngsters, and I give you Weasley, Granger, Weasley, aaaaaaannnnnnddddd Potter!"
"Okay, here's the deal, two chasers, a seeker, and a keeper. Bill will be our keeper, Ron will be yours obviously. Ginny and Hermione can be your chasers, and the twins will be ours. And that leaves me and you as seeker Harry," said Charlie.
"Right!" said Fred.
"They say you're pretty good Harry. We'll see."
"Is that a challenge Charlie?"
"Maybe, Potter. Maybe it is."
George released the snitch and tossed up the quaffle and the game began. George passed it between Fred, and even though they were beaters, they still had a pretty good connection with each other. They tossed it over Hermione's head and headed on goal. George faked right and threw it left. Ron easily read him and made a one-handed catch.
"Maybe next time, 'oh brother of mine.'" mimicked Ron. Ron tossed Ginny the quaffle and they went on a counter. Hermione tried to keep up with Ginny, but she was just too good. Ginny faked out the twins and came up at Bill, one on one. She feinted left and threw it center, scoring on Bill. Harry let out a whoop. They continued like that for a while, going back and forth. Ron came up with three more quality saves. Fred complained they would have to admit Ron was really a Weasley now. Harry laughed but noticed Charlie going into a dive. Harry swore and spun on his broom, trying to make up for time. Harry saw the tell tale glint of gold and raced Charlie for it. His Firebolt easily outstripped the cleansweep and he reached out to grasp the snitch. Smirking, Harry watched as victory was taken away from him. Charlie had longer arms and was able to knock Harry out of the way, but he missed the snitch, causing it to fly up. Charlie reached again but he was too far behind Harry for him to notice that much. Harry arched his back and spun sideways to grab for it, reaching out at full stretch. He managed to get hold of a wing and closed his fingers on it.
He then felt a nauseatingly familiar pull on his navel and stared in horror at the snitch.
Review time guys. Hope you enjoyed the chapter.
